My Foray into My Midwestern Roots

Goodbye 2012!

Today, people everywhere will say goodbye to 2012. For some the year was very bad, for others 2012 was a very good year, and for most of us – the year held a mixture of both good and bad, happy and sad. News highlights of the year included terrorist bombings in several parts of the world, the deaths of celebrities, a very heated and politically charged U.S. Presidential election, the tragedy of the Connecticut school shooting, the continuing war in Afghanistan and the beginning of the U.S. pull-out of Iraq, and whether or not the Mayans had predicted the end of the world (as of today – they had not!).

The past year has also been one for the genealogical record books. Everyone was on the edge of their seats with anticipation over the release of the 1940 U.S. Census in April which brought forth indexers by the hundreds (thousands?) who made such huge in-roads indexing the census that finding family and those from the “Greatest Generation” became easier faster. More genealogy blogs were published, Ancestry’s commercials were everywhere, family historians were up in arms when it was announced that “Who Do You Think You Are” was not going to be given a 4th season, more and more attended RootsTech 2012 and other conventions/classes/society meetings. Yet the year also ended on a bittersweet note for some as they realized years and years of their hard work had just been “lifted” without regard to copyright not to mention common courtesy and ethics.

The year 2012 for me had its ups and downs with regard to genealogy. I signed up to be a volunteer indexer for the 1940 U.S. Census, among other databases, and mid-way into that, I was also approved as an arbitrator. I found almost all of my dad’s family members and my mom’s family. I was able to spend a little more time writing articles for this blog, and consequently read several blogs quite frequently. Unfortunately the beginning of November (election day to be specific), my hard drive decided to quit. Even though I had backed everything up, I hadn’t done it as recently as I should – so I lost several things. I can recreate what I have lost – it’s just a matter of spending the time to do it. Moral of the story: back up once a month, once a week, or even once a day. Better yet – keep current files and photos in the cloud so they can be accessed at any time from any computer.